The road to recovery for residents in a west Houston neighborhood after Hurricane Harvey has been delayed for nearly two weeks.
It’s an area that didn’t originally flood, but after the release of the Addicks Reservoir, hundreds of homes in Nottingham Forest were damaged by floodwaters.
The water is finally gone and neighbors have been banding together to help each other clean up.
The trash pile in front of Dawn Rasch’s house is no longer there. It’s a welcoming sign of improvement in their ongoing struggle to rebuild.
The family’s home did not flood while it was raining during Harvey, but when the Addicks Reservoir was released, Rasch’s house and her neighborhood were destroyed.
“It just came so fast we weren’t able to save a lot of things, you can’t move everything upstairs,” Rasch said.
After it stopped raining, the release from the reservoir kept standing water in Rasch’s home for another 10 days.
“The kids don’t understand why we can’t live here. Allie has asked why can’t we just live on the roof. She said ‘Let’s just go back home.’ Last night she said, ‘I’m homesick. I just want to sleep on the roof. I just want to be back home.'”
It will take months before that happens, but Rasch said from the moment the family fled their home until now, they’ve experienced the best Houston has to offer.
“The kindness that people are showing…I have friends from Louisiana coming in to help demo. My brother, you know, that makes me cry. We can rebuild this. The kindness of people is overwhelming and the good of mankind. People are good,” Rasch said.
The base of operation for the neighborhood is her friend’s house, one of the few that remained dry.
“For some reason we are here. I feel really lucky and as long as we are, this home is open to anyone that needs it and I feel a little bit better knowing that now,” neighbor Angie Lawrence said.
Residents wish they had more warning when the reservoir was opened. They wish they had been told the neighborhood was going to flood.
